History of Colonizing and Decolonizing Languages in Indonesia and Southeast Asia (Indonesian vs English)
Historically, before the Dutch came to Indonesia to invade in 1600s due to Indonesia’s rich lucrative spice commodity, the islands, which are now called Indonesia, were occupied by Austronesian people in 4500-6300 BP. The Austronesian people originated from Taiwan and then voyaged to the Philippines, Central, and Eastern Indonesia, and to northern and eastern coastal regions of the Island of Melanesia. Linguistic studies have found that Proto-Austronesian was the source of 10 languages developing in Taiwan in 4000 BC (Hallen, 1999b) , but only Malayo-Polynesia of 10 languages was known to be the predecessor of languages spoken in Southeast Asia and Oceania (Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia). Malayo-Polynesian itself is scattered throughout the Central, Eastern, and Western parts with an intermediate connection between the Central and Eastern parts. The Central Malayo-Polynesian was mostly spoken in eastern Indonesia such as East Nusa Te...